


The Great Beyond Deleted Scenes: Act I Assorted

by ElsieGlass



Category: The Last of Us
Genre: Coming of Age, Dystopia, Father Figures, Father-Daughter Relationship, Gen, Post-Apocalypse, Post-Pandemic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-02
Updated: 2020-05-02
Packaged: 2021-03-02 09:55:59
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,785
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23969467
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ElsieGlass/pseuds/ElsieGlass
Summary: A small collection of Act I deleted scenes from The Great Beyond Series.
Relationships: Ellie & Joel (The Last of Us)
Comments: 7
Kudos: 42





	The Great Beyond Deleted Scenes: Act I Assorted

**Author's Note:**

> This is a small collection of deleted scenes and graphs from [Act I](https://archiveofourown.org/works/22075489) of [The Great Beyond](https://archiveofourown.org/series/1589026) series, my long-fic based on The Last of Us video game (2013) by the game development studio, Naughty Dog, a Bruce Straley/Neil Druckmann joint.
> 
> The Great Beyond is a work of fan fiction based on The Last of Us video game (2013) by the game development studio, Naughty Dog, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Sony Interactive Entertainment. Additional names, characters, places, and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
> 
> While this story makes reference to actual events and people, certain characters, characterizations, incidents, locations, and dialogue were fictionalized or invented for purposes of dramatization. With respect to such fictionalization of invention, any similarity to the name or to the actual character or history of any person, living or dead, or any product or entity or actual incident is entirely for dramatic purposes and not intended to reflect on any actual character, history, product, or entity.
> 
> I support the inalienable right to free expression and the inherent value of copyright. I hope my work encourages and inspires writers everywhere to create and make their own works that greatly enrich their lives and the fan fic culture.
> 
> Copyright (c) 2020 by Elsie Glass.
> 
> All rights reserved. 
> 
> ElsieGlassGlass@gmail.com
> 
> [Twitter @ElsieGlass20](https://twitter.com/ElsieGlass20)  
> [Insta @realelsieglass](https://www.instagram.com/realelsieglass/)
> 
> Happy reading! Xo
> 
> [You can find Act I of The Great Beyond here.](https://archiveofourown.org/works/22075489)
> 
> [You can find Act II of The Great Beyond here.](https://archiveofourown.org/works/22336039)
> 
> [You can find Act III of The Great Beyond here.](https://archiveofourown.org/works/22564579)

**_––––––––––––––_ **

**_The graph below was deleted from the end of[Chapter Eleven](https://archiveofourown.org/works/22075489/chapters/52864372). In the first draft, after the Cresskill raid, Joel scolded Ellie for handling a gun, which went against Jackson's rules. She sulked and Joel gave her a little pep talk. I ended-up re-purposing a part of this conversation during their fight in [Chapter Three](https://archiveofourown.org/works/22075489/chapters/52718716)._ **

**_––––––––––––––_ **

I drop my eyes and sweep my damp hair past my shoulder. “I get it,” I say. “You’re ashamed of me. Because I’m not like them.”

He scoffs. “You’re talking like a damn fool.”

“This place makes me feel like one.”

“Meaning?”

“Meaning I’m not allowed to do anything.”

“You have work to do every day.”

“That’s not what I meant.”

“Listen here,” he says. “Sheer strength doesn’t mean success. Fumbling through a match in blind fury won’t win you any games. Victory goes deeper than aggressive offense and defense. For the good of the team, a man’s courage’s gotta be backed by pure nerve and intelligence. Courage ain’t judged by how big or small you are. It means blindly sacrificing yourself when sacrifice’s necessary. Giving away more of yourself than folks expect, carrying the fight to the enemy, sweeping through to the last stand, and conquering with indomitable will.”

“But I didn’t run from trouble!” I yell, exasperated.

He shakes his head, no. “I reckon I’ve said too much or too little, but I’ve said all I aim to say.”

“How was I wrong?”

“You’ve gotta learn how to play your cards close to your chest. Don’t show them too much. Does no harm, but does no one no good.”

**––––––––––––––**

**_This scene below was deleted from[Chapter Fourteen](https://archiveofourown.org/works/22075489/chapters/52900036). It was a small conversation between the guests during the chicken dinner at Tommy's cabin. _ **

**––––––––––––––**

“This here’s just like the farm dinners my pa used to crow about,” Kassidy says.

“The kind of dinner a man likes to see on his table,” Warburton says. “Nothing fancy, just crop and game.”

“How do you like your chicken, Corbin?” Bailey asks her son.

“It’s tough,” Corbin says.

“It’d be tougher if you didn’t have any,” she laughs. “Back when I was your age, everything was premixed, pre-sliced, pre-seasoned, precooked, deboned, de-feathered, de-shelled, and de-scaled. Chicken was smashed, mashed, and squashed into funny little shapes. Nuggets.” She gestures at his plate. “That chicken was hatched, reared, killed, plucked, cleaned, and cooked by hand, and we’ll use the last scrap of the smallest cut, from the whiskers to the tail.”

“Even the tail’s delicious,” Kassidy laughs, her heaping fork held aloft.

“I’ll tell you a little secret,” Eve says to her. “All you’ve gotta do is smother everything in a mess of salt and good clean clarified drippings. Get yourself a piece of potato and soak up the burnt stuff. Brew-up a couple fingers of water for fifteen minutes, take out the cake, scrape off the sediment, and melt it down clean. Keep one for baking and one for cooking.”

“Remind me Christmastime,” Kassidy says.

“Ain’t worth the hassle,” Warburton says. “We haven’t had a proper Christmas in twenty-one years. Not without Kassidy’s ham.”

“We bred large whites,” Kassidy says to the table. “Yorkshires. Acorn fed. Roasted whole, hickory-smoked, and cured.”

“Out yonder in Montana?” Eve asks.

“That’s right,” she says. “I’m from a little town between two hills. Everyone was related in one way or another, all with the same eyes and jaws, height and shoulders. We had a post office, an old grain dryer, an elementary school, a high school, three churches, and a gas station that didn’t sell gas, but they’d sell you some bait if you had a hankering to go fishing! I was born and raised on an old acorn farm. Till I got rustled-up by Rudd.” She winds an arm across Warburton’s back. “My cowpuncher.”

“Right down to the Skoal ring in my Wranglers,” he says with a wink.

––––––– **–––––––**

**_The scene below was deleted from[Chapter Nineteen](https://archiveofourown.org/works/22075489/chapters/52998346). It took place outside the wire when the Deltas were sitting around the cooking fire, swapping hunting anecdotes. Coffey told his story about killing the bear, and Chapman tried to one-up Tommy and Joel's story about the golden goose._ **

_**––––––––––––––** _

Tommy addresses Coffey. “You’re the toughest sonofabitch I’ve ever known,” he says.

“Nah,” Coffey says. “Had a buddy with a big old nasty knot of scars on the back of his leg, calf all chewed-up. Worked up the nerve to ask him one day and the story goes, he was out camping when a pack of wolves circled the campfire. Hamstringed him till his leg was hanging offa his knee by a tendon, blood spurting everywhere. Laying there, pretty near dead, he shoved his rifle barrel into the embers, cauterized his own leg, and crawled through the night till he found help. That’s the toughest motherfucker I’ve ever known.”

“Hinchman,” Maxwell laughs.

“I said the toughest, not the craziest,” Tommy laughs.

“Why Hinchman?” I ask Maxwell.

He laughs and digs around his short dark-blond beard. “Story goes he was out drifting east of the Rockies on horseback, sunk in the high plains sands. Dry as the Sahara, scorching sun, not a cloud in sight. The kinda place that makes Hell feel like a freezer! Half-crazed with thirst, he started hallucinating till he tore off his clothes in agony. Mouth so parched, lips so black, and tongue so swollen, he couldn’t even cry for help. Muttering like a madman. Skin blistered and eyes blind with dust, bloodshot to the point of bursting. Says he saw blood running outta that poor beast’s mouth, is how he got the notion. Threw a p-cord around its neck, pulled till its jugular popped out, and punctured the vein. Drank the blood, boiling-hot. Chawed on that poor beast’s neck with those big old teeth.” The men laugh and shake their heads in derision.

“Back where I grew up,” Chapman says, “the craziest motherfucker round those parts was Old Man Watkins. Earle Watkins. Owned acres and acres on the edge of town, connected by woods, miles into the country with some of the best fishing and hunting in the whole county—if you could get past him. Ducks in the marshes, deer in the bluffs. We’d jump the fence and bag quail till we got bored, then wait for him to come tearing around, screaming his head off. ‘I own this land, you hear?’ Chapman yells, imitating Watkins’ hysterical twang. ‘Ain’t nothing out here but for you to be running offa it! I’ll bust you up proper and feed you to my hogs!’

“Sundays after church,” Chapman continues, “he and his wife would visit her sick momma out yonder, and I’d head over and bag me some duck. Cripple their wings till they flapped off into the reeds—dead ones all over the thickets, dozens dead and dying. One time, I walked up to the house on my way out with all them fresh kills bleeding-out all over the ground. Out front was one of his daughters, half-wild and barefoot. I went to school with them crazy bitches. I knew she’d tell her old man but he didn’t scare me none.

“She cracked open some cold brews and I followed her to the couch. One thing led to another. Just as I’m balls deep, Old Man Watkins comes roaring into the house with his shotgun, his eyes flashing fire and brimstone. ‘You’d better start counting your sins before I blow you to Kingdom Come, boy! I’ll perforate you so bad, your own momma won’t recognize you!’ I lit outta there like my ass was on fire, buck nekkid—but I done grabbed my kill!”

“Them’s some mighty tall tales,” Coffey says.

“Well, who’re you gonna believe?” Chapman asks. “The man who’s seen it, heard it, and felt it? Or the doubter who was thousands of miles away when it happened?

The men laugh and shake their heads in derision. 

“Fuck all y’all!” Chapman yells. “Y’all be crowing about the goddamn golden goose, but I’d done killed him! And his pretty wife, too!”

“Ain’t that something?” Coffey scoffs. 

“It took me two seasons," Chapman says, "but I bagged him, out on them prairies where I grew up, down in the hollows in the freshwater ponds. The first day of the season, I hid myself out in the tall skinny reeds growing at the edge of the pond. I was sitting there smoking a cigarette when I heard a loud splash and there he was: a fat golden goose with golden wings. I made the call like when they’re swallowing acorns. He looked around and listened but he wasn’t falling for it. He winged-off and flashed them golden feathers. He was special. I wanted him—and I was gonna have him.

“Now, geese’re creatures of habit. Once you figure out their pattern, you know exactly what they’ll do, where they’ll go, and when they’ll do it. I went back every day for two weeks but never saw him again. Next year, at a different pond in the same hollow, what’d’ya know? There he was with a pure white goose, plumage all glossy. His girl. I sent up a shot to turn them back to their old hunting grounds and they headed straight for it. I followed and used every trick for a week straight.

“A week later, I went back before dawn with a ghillie suit and submerged myself in the water, covered in reeds, and waited, teeth clattering, half-frozen to death. At dawn, he came dead center over the water with her but he must’ve heard or seen something ‘cause he sent up his danger cry and launched-off. She followed but I’d had enough.” He swings up an imaginary shotgun and pantomimes a shot. “Blam! She plunged down with a big splash and a thud of spray, that dull dead sound of a bird falling from the sky.

“I was fuming, never so mad in my life. I waded out to the middle of the pond, grabbed her by the neck, and started back. Right as I stepped onto the shore, a rush of wings scared me half to death. It was him! He circled downwind and gave a sad desperate call. I changed outta my wet clothes, built a fire, and made camp. At daybreak, I used her as a decoy close to my reed cover. The ground was frozen, full of briars and stubble, my whole body cramped-up and aching. And what’d’ya know? He came back looking for her. His heartbreak made him so careless, he swooped down and darted to her side. Blam! I shot him through the head!”

“Jesus Christ, Chapman,” Coffey scoffs.

“Well what’d you do with him?” Maxwell asks.

“I didn’t do nothing,” Chapman says.


End file.
